--- title: "Carrier Safety Scores Benchmarked Against True Peers | What's New | AlphaLoops" description: "AlphaLoops Carrier Benchmarks scores 779,000 carriers A to F against true peers, not the whole industry. Six safety dimensions, FMCSA-sourced, available via API." lang: en json-ld: | [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "WebSite", "name": "AlphaLoops", "alternateName": [ "AlphaLoops.com", "Run AlphaLoop" ], "url": "https://runalphaloops.com/" }, { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "headline": "Carrier Benchmarks: Safety Grades Built on Actual Peers", "description": "AlphaLoops Carrier Benchmarks scores 779,000 carriers A to F against true peers, not the whole industry. Six safety dimensions, FMCSA-sourced, available via API.", "url": "https://runalphaloops.com/whats-new/carrier-benchmarks-carrier-safety-grades-built-on-actual-peers", "datePublished": "2026-08-18 11:00", "publisher": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "AlphaLoops", "url": "https://runalphaloops.com" } } ] --- [![AlphaLoops](/lovable-uploads/AlphaLoops-Logo-2025_Black-Type_White-Background_3280x1024.png)](/) Products [ I Intelligence Win the deal — technology stack, growth signals & decision-maker contacts on 2.7M carriers. For GTM teams → ](/product)[ V Verify NEW Trust the carrier — embeddable identity & association verification, under your brand. For risk & ops → ](/verify) One carrier data layer · 2.7M carriers [Explore the platform →](/product) [Solutions](/solutions) Sell into trucking [Telematics & ELD Telematics, ELD, dashcam & connected fleet sales ](/solutions/telematics)[TMS TMS sales, BD & RevOps ](/solutions/tms)[Fleet Payments Fuel cards, expense cards, AP & driver pay ](/solutions/fleet-payments)[Insurance Commercial auto, MGAs & trucking programs ](/solutions/insurance)[EquipmentNEW Truck & trailer dealers, OEMs & leasing ](/solutions/equipment)[FactoringNEW Freight factoring & working-capital lenders ](/solutions/factoring)[ComplianceNEW DOT compliance, safety & audit ](/solutions/compliance) Work with carriers [Broker Risk Fraud intelligence for brokers & 3PLs ](/solutions/broker-risk)[Carrier RecruitingNEW Source & onboard carrier capacity ](/solutions/carrier-recruiting) Why AlphaLoops One dataset, every freight buyer. 2.7M carriers profiled, refreshed daily Whoever you sell to or move freight with, it's the same source of truth — synced to your CRM. [Book a demo](/contact)[View all solutions → ](/solutions) [Integrate](/integrations) [ Salesforce AppExchange managed package · push to Account, Lead, Contact ](/integrations/salesforce)[ HubSpot Managed app · push to Company and Contact with associations ](/integrations/hubspot)[ Microsoft Dynamics 365 Power Automate connector · push to Dataverse Account and Contact ](/integrations/dynamics)[ n8n Verified community node · AI agent workflows ](/integrations/n8n)[ MCP Server Hosted Model Context Protocol · Claude, Cursor, Windsurf ](/mcp) [All integrations →](/integrations) [Pricing](/pricing)[Research](https://research.runalphaloops.com) [What's new](/whats-new) [ Carrier Benchmarks NEW Carrier safety grades built on actual peers ](/whats-new/carrier-benchmarks-carrier-safety-grades-built-on-actual-peers) [All updates →](/whats-new) [Log in](https://alphafreight.runalphaloops.com/login)[Sign up](https://alphafreight.runalphaloops.com/login?mode=signup)[Book a demo](/book-a-demo) [Home](/)/ [What's New](/whats-new)/ Carrier Benchmarks: Safety Grades Built on Actual Peers Feature Release August 18, 2026 # Carrier Benchmarks: Safety Grades Built on Actual Peers An A-to-F safety grade on 779,000 carriers, each one measured against carriers that resemble it. ![Carrier Benchmarks: Safety Grades Built on Actual Peers](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2520x1080/831ffce169/hero-truck-field-alphaloops.png) Today we're shipping AlphaLoops Carrier Benchmarks: a single letter grade, backed by six scored dimensions, on every graded carrier in the platform and on every carrier lookup through the API. It's built to answer one question fast. Is this carrier safe relative to operations like its own? Not relative to the entire trucking industry, which is where most safety signals quietly go wrong. ## Why we built it A violation rate that would sink a local flatbed outfit is a Tuesday for a national reefer fleet running twice the miles. Same number, opposite meaning. Most safety tools can't tell those two carriers apart, because they hold every carrier to the same yardstick: ![](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2320x374/af20d33886/02-peer-comparison.png)Everything needed to tell them apart is already in the public FMCSA record. It's just vast, noisy, and never organized by who belongs next to whom. That's the part we built. ## How this differs from CSA CSA already compares carriers to peers, so this is the first question we get. The difference is what "peer" means. FMCSA sorts carriers into five safety event groups based on how many relevant inspections or crashes they have. For Vehicle Maintenance, those groups run 5-10 inspections, 11-20, 21-100, 101-500, and 501+. One operational split exists, combination trucks versus straight trucks, and it applies only to Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator. Beyond that, FMCSA states it plainly: safety event groups do not compare carriers by the commodities they haul or their industry segment. That is the right design for what CSA does. Its job is to prioritize enforcement resources toward the highest crash risk, irrespective of industry segment. It was never built to tell a broker whether this flatbed is riskier than other flatbeds like it. Carrier Benchmarks asks that second question of the same public record. A carrier's peer group is defined by how it operates, not by how many times it has been inspected. FMCSA has approved a set of SMS changes, not yet in effect, that replace safety event groups with proportionate percentiles and extend segmentation to two more categories. The grouping would still be driven by event volume and coarse vehicle type. ## What you get - **One grade, A through F**, on 778,905 graded carriers out of 2.3M active. - **Six scored dimensions** underneath it, each 0 to 100, where higher always means safer. - **The peer group named on every score**, so you can see exactly what a carrier was compared against. - **An explicit confidence signal**, so a thin record never gets dressed up as a confident one. - **Fixed thresholds.** A grade changes when the carrier's record changes, never because other carriers moved around it. - **All of it in the API.** The grade, the six dimensions, the matched peer group, and the confidence flag come back on the carrier response, so Carrier Benchmarks can drive an underwriting rule or a lead score without anyone opening a browser. ![](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2320x1000/d1f6ce8c5a/08-safety-dimensions.png) Crash History carries the heaviest weight of the six. It's the dimension that should move a grade the most, and the pipeline is built so it does. ## How the peer matching works The trucking universe isn't one population, it's thousands. So instead of one comparison, we maintain multiple ways to group carriers and match each one to the most specific group that still has enough peers behind it, tried in this order: 1. **Fleet size × operating radius.** A small local isn't held to a national long-haul bar. 2. **Carrier type × region.** For-hire vs. private, and where they run. 3. **Equipment profile.** Reefer, flatbed, tanker, dry van, and the risk baked into the freight. 4. **The whole graded industry.** The fallback that never runs short. Once a carrier is matched, the scoring itself is five small, auditable steps. Measure turns raw counts into fair rates. Rank finds where that rate falls in the peer group's distribution. Orient flips it so higher always means safer. Match holds the group it was scored against. Combine rolls the six dimensions into one weighted number. ![](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2320x1164/6b5aeccbeb/09-scoring-pipeline.png)Before scoring against any group, we require at least **384 carriers** in it. That's the sample size at which a proportion is accurate to within ±5 points at 95% confidence, not a round number that sounded about right. Below it, the edges of the distribution get shaky, and the edges are exactly where "is this carrier an outlier?" gets decided. ![](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2320x1050/90cfce5099/10-fallback-ladder.png)The safety net rarely fires. Across two-axis peer groups, the pairing that falls back most often is Fleet Size × Equipment, at 6% of cases. Most comparisons never need it. A fifth lens, fleet composition × mileage, is available to compare against by hand on every carrier profile, but doesn't yet feed the automatic match. ## Grades that mean something We grade on the real distribution, not a classroom curve. Most carriers cluster in the safe range, so a mid-50s score isn't a near-failing grade, it's the middle of the pack. We set the cut points so the median carrier earns a B. ![](https://a.storyblok.com/f/290978107134800/2320x858/0dcbefcd27/07-grade-key.png)Checked against all 778,905 graded carriers, the median score lands at 60.7, squarely inside the B band. B is both the most common grade and the statistical median, by design rather than coincidence. ## Where to find it Carrier Benchmarks is live now in three places, with no separate call or upgrade needed: - **API.** Every carrier lookup returns the grade, the six dimension scores, the peer group each was matched against, and the confidence flag. Nothing extra to request, no separate endpoint to integrate. - **Carrier profiles and the vetting report.** The same grade, with the peer group and method shown next to each dimension so it can be read and defended by a human. - **Your systems.** Because it rides along on the standard carrier response, Carrier flows through the existing MCP server, Salesforce sync, Zapier, and n8n integrations without new plumbing. ## What it is not - **Not a CSA or SMS score.** Independent method, built from raw inspection, violation, and crash counts. We don't restate FMCSA's compliance ratings or its safety rating. - **Relative, not a verdict.** A B means "above the pack for this peer group." An F is a prompt to look closer, not a legal conclusion. - **Never invented.** Where the public record lacks a detail, the report says so instead of filling the gap with an assumption. ## What's next We don't yet have an independent re-implementation check, a from-scratch distribution reconciliation, or a measured approximation error. Those are real gaps in how we verify this pipeline, not settled facts we're choosing not to publish. We'll add them and publish the results alongside the code that produced them. The full methodology, including the confidence surface by fleet size and mileage and the complete measure-rank-orient-match-combine pipeline, is documented here: On this page - [Why we built it](#section-0) - [How this differs from CSA](#section-1) - [What you get](#section-2) - [How the peer matching works](#section-3) - [Grades that mean something](#section-4) - [Where to find it](#section-5) - [What it is not](#section-6) - [What's next](#section-7) Release Info Released August 18, 2026 Category Feature Release Share TwitterLinkedInCopy Related Updates [Feature Release Bank Account Verification & Digital Authorization September 1, 2026 ](/whats-new/bank-account-verification-digital-authorization)[Feature Release Finer Fraud Controls, a Faster Check, and More Carriers Through August 29, 2026 ](/whats-new/finer-fraud-controls-a-faster-check-and-more-carriers-through)[Feature Release Introducing the AlphaLoops Chrome Extension July 22, 2026 ](/whats-new/introducing-the-alphaloops-chrome-extension) [← Previous Introducing the AlphaLoops Chrome Extension ](/whats-new/introducing-the-alphaloops-chrome-extension)[Next → Finer Fraud Controls, a Faster Check, and More Carriers Through ](/whats-new/finer-fraud-controls-a-faster-check-and-more-carriers-through) [ALPHA LOOPS ](/) Carrier intelligence and verification for freight — built on every motor carrier in America. [hello@runalphaloops.com](mailto:hello@runalphaloops.com) ### Products - [Intelligence](/product) - [VerifyNEW ](/verify) - [Our Data](/our-data) - [FMCSA API](/fmcsa-api) - [MCP Server](/mcp) - [Integrations](/integrations) - [Pricing](/pricing) ### [Solutions](/solutions) - [Insurance](/solutions/insurance) - [Broker Risk](/solutions/broker-risk) - [TMS](/solutions/tms) - [Fleet Payments](/solutions/fleet-payments) - [Telematics](/solutions/telematics) ### Resources - [Carrier Flows](/data/carrier-flows) - [FMCSA Data Hub](/data) - [Carrier Watchlist](/watchlist) - [Carrier Technology](/technology) - [Research](https://research.runalphaloops.com/) - [Guides](/guides) ### Company - [Contact](/contact) - [What's New](/whats-new) - [Support](/support) - [Security](/security) - [Compare AlphaLoops](/vs) Tracked telematics, TMS & fuel-card providers [Samsara](/technology/telematics/samsara)[Motive](/technology/telematics/motive)[Omnitracs](/technology/telematics/omnitracs)[Geotab](/technology/telematics/geotab)[Verizon Connect](/technology/telematics/verizon-connect)[Trimble](/technology/telematics/trimble)[Lytx](/technology/telematics/lytx)[McLeod Software](/technology/tms/mcleod-software)[AscendTMS](/technology/tms/ascendtms)[Oracle TMS](/technology/tms/oracle-transportation-management-otm)[SAP TM](/technology/tms/sap-transportation-management)[WEX Fleet Card](/technology/fuel-card/wex-fleet-card)[Comdata](/technology/fuel-card/comdata-fuel-card)[EFS Fuel Card](/technology/fuel-card/efs-fuel-card)[Pilot Flying J](/technology/fuel-card/pilot-flying-j-fuel-card) © 2026 AlphaLoops, Inc. · Verify is patent pending. [Privacy](/privacy)[Chrome Extension Privacy Policy](/chrome-extension-privacy)[Terms](/terms)[Security](/security)[Trust Center](https://trust.runalphaloops.com/)[Status](https://status.runalphaloops.com)